Title : THE INFLUENCE OF EVENT SALIENCE ON RESPONSE FREQUENCY IN A TEN-ALTERNATIVE PROBABILITY LEARNING SITUATION,

Corporate Author : NAVAL SCHOOL OF AVIATION MEDICINE PENSACOLA FLA

Personal Author(s) : Beach,Lee Roy ; Shoenberger,Richard W.

Report Date : 19 JUL 1963

Pagination or Media Count : 8

Abstract : The purpose of this investigation was to examine the influence of the salience of stimulus events on the relative frequency of response in a tenalternative probability learning situation. Salience was defined as the difference in relative frequency of occurrence of an event and the relative frequencies of occurrence of the events surrounding it on an underlying physical or conceptual dimension--in this case a dimension provided by the spatial location of the event lights on the stimulus display. Four event frequency distributions providing varying levels of event salience were used. An attempt was also made to examine spatial generalization effects of the salience of the high frequency events to those which lie closesc to them on the display. It was found that with increased salience of an event there was a corresponding increase in the degree to which subjects' relative frequency of response ''overshot'' its relative frequency of occurrence. The data suggest that generalization effects exist, but that the relationships are more complex than hypothesized and merit further study. (Author)